The nature of poverty on the NSW North Coast in 2010

The Salvation Army commissioned Roy Morgan Research to conduct a CATIBus national telephone survey which formed the basis of the recently released Perception of Poverty: An Insight into the Nature and Impact of Poverty in Australia. This report can be downloaded as a PDF file here.

ABC News 18 October 2010:

The Salvation Army says that many families in the Northern Rivers are living below the poverty line. A report released today by The Salvation Army says that low income earners are now known as the "working poor".

A new report released by The Salvation Army called "Perceptions of Poverty" shows there are 2 million Australians living in poverty. Doug Barber is the Northern Region Community support coordinator for The Salvation Army. He says that on the north coast many low income families are living below the poverty line and they are seeing a greater call for people seeking material aid through neighbourhood centres, The Salvation Army and other centres."That is a trend that has been reported to us in the past 3 years, so pre-dated financial crisis. [There is an] increasing number of families and older people, the type of people who wouldn't normally have access to support services, coming for assistance", he said.Mr Barber says that some of the factors contributing to people living in poverty on the north coast are long term unemployment, intergenerational unemployment and high housing costs.
"The housing costs here are relatively high relative to income that essentially keeps people in poverty. People are trapped in a cycle of low income and essentially having to commit a large proportion of their income to maintaining a roof over their heads", Mr Barber said. Nationally the report said that there are 80,000 new clients for the Salvation Army last year and are part of the new working poor, people who have full time jobs but just can not make ends meet. The Salvation Army says housing and rental costs in the Northern Rivers are extremely high and people are paying between $300 and $450 per week in rent and their income across a fortnight is around $1000-$1200 per fortnight and people are struggling to make ends meet.......